When confronted with a human being whose emotional intelligence has been reduce to the rudimentary construct of plankton, (pain-body) being present with them often feels like ignoring.

Additionally, from this I feel I have to give some prompt that indicates I'm listening so I gently nod my head at the highlights of their story. This often feels like I'm just propelling their wheel of angst as I can hear the energy in their voice become evermore animated.

My findings are quite limited as I haven't had enough experience but I shall report back further occurrence of this phenomena at a later stage.

Your thread here sent me back to a 6 page rambling thread created years ago now - if you have the time, you might find it speaks to both your expressed questions/thoughts you've mentioned across your posts, and maybe some as yet unexpressed.

It might be an overload (I've just reread it in its entirety - different folks sharing different things as a given moment in time) but it certainly looks at things from a range of perspectives.

That's a very interesting read although I haven't traversed its entirety. I'll pay further visits when I have more time.

Having come across your reply, it prompted me to reread my post. I saw that there may be some level of self-elevation in the experience of being present with a human who are living out their emotional pain in a very animating fashion. I've been through this before. It's a feeling of subtle superiority. This could be seen as reverberation of that particular experience by my describing the conditioned emotional state of another as the finer constituents of plankton.

For the most part, my interactions are levelling. There are smaller transnational components within the shared space of two people that are both volitional and non-volitional. In fact, when one develops an acute awareness of this, you can subtly capitalise on its malleability and alter the course of the greater narrative. This is requires a great level of consciousness but my most pertinent point here is: aside from the verbal and non-verbal ques that occur in such a situation, what is the greater element that defines being present?

There is also the self-enquiry of: am I just wanting their pain to arrive towards a speedy resolve? In this instance, it wouldn't matter how long they continue in their pain. I can gather teachings from my own response to the shared experience but the question still remains: do you, yourself, notice your own verbal and non-verbal ques giving motivation to the emotional pain of another?

snowheight wrote:Self-honesty is always ever it's own reward. As far as self-inquiry or a process of becoming conscious of the contents and dynamics of our own minds goes, ain't one greater.

Yes, there is that.

From an objective standpoint I find the workings of my own mind intriguing, however, I have come to learn that it's rare to find another with the same quality of discipline.

It certainly seems to me that there's no shortage of example of folks whose actions and expressions would suggest a lack thereof. But in witnessing the movement of my mind as it generated that expression of this perception, I'm conscious of how it's rooted in the specifics of my conditioning. Detached witnessing can be dualistic, and material, or not. Tolle wrote about this quite emphatically in the first few pages of TPON.

Encountering emptiness can be very transformative, but ultimately, that which would either discipline or be subject to discipline is as transient as such encounters.

Stop talking. Hear every sound as background. Look straight ahead and focus. Take one deep breath. This is you. This is Now.

snowheight wrote:
But in witnessing the movement of my mind as it generated that expression of this perception, I'm conscious of how it's rooted in the specifics of my conditioning.

And to cautiously distil your words, your sentence here then, suggests some degree of watching yourself from the objective of the awareness. It then must be sufficient for you to 'just watch' without the enquiry of the micro-transactions that occur in a dialogue with yourself and another person. This is an assumption though. I guess we all have are own facets of awareness, but that's not to say the facets are hierarchical where one level supersedes another, just that they are alternate methods of getting by based on who we are as individuals.

Yes, the description of the witnessing is after-the-fact, and quite clumsy relative to what it's attempting to describe. It's not only sufficient to 'just watch', but really all the other interplay during those transactions is ultimately superfluous. In this there is a useful distinction between consciousness and awareness. In terms of the end of self-inquiry, what I'd say is that none of that movement, nothing temporal, nothing that comes and goes is what I am or has any reality in and of itself. That movement is consciousness. In describing the movement, or in witnessing it, there is ever the duality of witness, and what is witnessed. The awareness, on the other hand, is unconditioned, eternal, and always absolutely still and silent. It is only this awareness, that you are, that has any claim at all to the notion of reality.

Stop talking. Hear every sound as background. Look straight ahead and focus. Take one deep breath. This is you. This is Now.

snowheight wrote:Yes, the description of the witnessing is after-the-fact, and quite clumsy relative to what it's attempting to describe. It's not only sufficient to 'just watch', but really all the other interplay during those transactions is ultimately superfluous. In this there is a useful distinction between consciousness and awareness. In terms of the end of self-inquiry, what I'd say is that none of that movement, nothing temporal, nothing that comes and goes is what I am or has any reality in and of itself. That movement is consciousness. In describing the movement, or in witnessing it, there is ever the duality of witness, and what is witnessed. The awareness, on the other hand, is unconditioned, eternal, and always absolutely still and silent. It is only this awareness, that you are, that has any claim at all to the notion of reality.

I see. That was put forth quite beautifully.

It reminded me of the beginning of the Upanishads:

“The Spirit, without moving, is swifter than the mind".

Last edited by NuanceOfSuchness on Tue Jan 30, 2018 10:53 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Thank you both for the kind words. And we all should thank Nisargadatta, as I'm definitely paraphrasing him to some extent in making that distinction between consciousness and awareness. This forum is where I was first exposed to him, years ago. By my recollections, several of his questioners in "I AM THAT" led him to discuss the thread topic with them.

Stop talking. Hear every sound as background. Look straight ahead and focus. Take one deep breath. This is you. This is Now.

NuanceOfSuchness wrote:When confronted with a human being whose emotional intelligence has been reduce to the rudimentary construct of plankton, (pain-body) being present with them often feels like ignoring.

Additionally, from this I feel I have to give some prompt that indicates I'm listening so I gently nod my head at the highlights of their story. This often feels like I'm just propelling their wheel of angst as I can hear the energy in their voice become evermore animated.

What is your experience of being present in this situation?

I agree. Communicating with someone who is not present (when you yourself are present) can be quite a challenge, because it's like you're speaking in a different language that they don't understand. If you stay present and calm, it can infuriate the person because they may mistake your behavior for apathy, disinterest, or even ridicule, which can escalate the drama. On the other hand, if you give in and join their pain-body drama, things get worse anyhow.

Eckhart makes it sound like being present with an unconscious person is the easiest thing in the world. I would really like to put him to the test in a real life scenario with an unconscious person and see how effective he is. I get the feeling he hasn't had much real experience talking to people; he's known to be a loner.

I've reached the conclusion that it is often best to just walk away from an unconscious person and avoid contact, rather than stay and try to be present.

Eckhart makes it sound like being present with an unconscious person is the easiest thing in the world. I would really like to put him to the test in a real life scenario with an unconscious person and see how effective he is. I get the feeling he hasn't had much real experience talking to people; he's known to be a loner.

I could be described a as loner. In fact, at one point I was searching around for somewhere out to sea for a lighthouse keepers job.

jukai wrote: I've reached the conclusion that it is often best to just walk away from an unconscious person and avoid contact, rather than stay and try to be present.

There are those occasions where one must disembark. There's a teacher in the unconscious actions of others but it takes a bit of watching and some of that chronological time stuff.

I agree. Communicating with someone who is not present (when you yourself are present ---- comparison) can be quite a challenge enemy? obstacle? means to an end?, because it's like you're speaking in a different language that they don't understand. separation with judgement

If you stay present and calm, it can infuriate the person because they may mistake your behavior for apathy, disinterest, or even ridicule, which can escalate the drama. On the other hand, if you give in and join their pain-body drama, things get worse anyhow.

One of the points of the Being Human thread is that whether one is conscious of it or not, senders and receivers are interpreting and transmitting energy frequencies from within energy frequencies that are pure.

I would gently suggest that if someone is picking up 'apathy, disinterest or even ridicule' from someone else's interpretation/enactment of 'present and calm' the disconnect and misunderstanding (standing under) is likely at least as much from the sender's energy frequency as the receiver's interpreting. People - cells - know what 'apathy' what 'disinterest' and 'even ridicule' feel like - the body and the energy doesn't lie, the mind and the mouth does.

If we are in the state of even remotely comparing our self to another, or seeing something as a ''problem' - in enemy, obstacle, means to an end unconscious thinking -
rather than being with another fully - and that doesn't have to mean enacting their energy - but rather authentic acceptance of them and the situation as it really is - then the disconnect is because they are feeling the energy transmittance of being 'separated' 'judged' and/or being found 'less than' - energy does not lie it knows what measure/frequency it is and from where it came.

Energy receptors put the energy exactly where it fits (even if it's not spiritually palatable for the one with the 'problem' with being with others.)

It's why we can be hearing something with our ears, but feeling the disconnect in the interpretation because it somehow in its energetic flow has just kicked us in the guts - all while someone is standing there smiling as if they are present and calm.

The difference in present and calm energy is that 'we' disappear - so there is no separation of thought.
(imho)

I agree. Communicating with someone who is not present (when you yourself are present ---- comparison) can be quite a challenge enemy? obstacle? means to an end?, because it's like you're speaking in a different language that they don't understand. separation with judgement

If you stay present and calm, it can infuriate the person because they may mistake your behavior for apathy, disinterest, or even ridicule, which can escalate the drama. On the other hand, if you give in and join their pain-body drama, things get worse anyhow.

One of the points of the Being Human thread is that whether one is conscious of it or not, senders and receivers are interpreting and transmitting energy frequencies from within energy frequencies that are pure.

I would gently suggest that if someone is picking up 'apathy, disinterest or even ridicule' from someone else's interpretation/enactment of 'present and calm' the disconnect and misunderstanding (standing under) is likely at least as much from the sender's energy frequency as the receiver's interpreting. People - cells - know what 'apathy' what 'disinterest' and 'even ridicule' feel like - the body and the energy doesn't lie, the mind and the mouth does.

If we are in the state of even remotely comparing our self to another, or seeing something as a ''problem' - in enemy, obstacle, means to an end unconscious thinking -
rather than being with another fully - and that doesn't have to mean enacting their energy - but rather authentic acceptance of them and the situation as it really is - then the disconnect is because they are feeling the energy transmittance of being 'separated' 'judged' and/or being found 'less than' - energy does not lie it knows what measure/frequency it is and from where it came.

Energy receptors put the energy exactly where it fits (even if it's not spiritually palatable for the one with the 'problem' with being with others.)

It's why we can be hearing something with our ears, but feeling the disconnect in the interpretation because it somehow in its energetic flow has just kicked us in the guts - all while someone is standing there smiling as if they are present and calm.

The difference in present and calm energy is that 'we' disappear - so there is no separation of thought.
(imho)

Hi Jen, sorry, I didn't understand any of what you said.

I was simply stating my experience trying to stay present with someone who isn't. And pointing out that it doesn't just magically fix the situation.